As he wandered his Bexley neighborhood on Halloween as a child, Ross Friedman dressed as his
favorite Crew player, Brian McBride.

Now, after a four-year college career at Harvard, Friedman joined Batavia, Ohio, native Matt
Walker as the two latest players to sign homegrown player contracts with the Crew. Both signings
were announced yesterday, which was Friedman’s 22nd birthday.

And for a player who grew up watching Jeff Cunningham, Dante Washington and Frankie Hejduk, it
was a birthday worth remembering.

“They told me that they would announce it on the seventh, but I got lucky that with the weather
they shut down Crew Stadium, so it all worked out really nicely,” Friedman said. “It’s a nice
birthday present.”

With the signings, the Crew sits at seven homegrown players on its roster, a figure tied for the
highest total in Major League Soccer. By league rules, a team can sign a player to a homegrown
contract without first exposing him to the draft if he has trained in the team’s academy system for
at least a year.

Friedman projects as an outside back, but has some experience in the midfield. Walker will
likely play on the wing in the midfield. Both players have known each other for years from playing
together in the Crew’s academy system and talked extensively before signing.

“It’s extremely encouraging when you want to make a career out of this sport and you are
assessing your options and you can look at the track records of the club you’d be playing for and
their homegrown players and it’s phenomenal,” Walker said. “It gives you hope. To see guys that I
played with and know well succeed, it makes you think that I can (too).”

New Crew coach and sporting director Gregg Berhalter credited Andrew Arthurs, director of the
academy, for helping keep both players in the pipeline as the club went through a coaching
change.

“We have some young, talented players that we developed, and I think that’s key in this whole
thing,” Berhalter said. “We want to send a message to kids in our academy that they have a chance
to make it to the first team.”

The Crew roster sits at 27 players with the MLS SuperDraft one week away. Berhalter said the
team is still looking to sign more players, some from overseas, before the draft.